Presentation | Public Speaking Tips

Monthly Archives: June 2015

In an earlier post, Understand The Context of Your Session, I talked about the importance of preparation beyond your slides. The need to be Aware, Prepare and Respond to situations – mostly out of your control. These include aspects such as the size and layout of the room, the speaker you follow, type of microphone and presentation screen, time of day you speak, size of the stage, and more.

In this tip, I share a personal story of how I approached speaking in a gargantuan room.

The Airplane Hangar-Sized Conference Hall Room

A few years ago I spoke at a large retail conference and had a 30 minute slot, the last session of the day at 4:45 pm. Not only was I up against the cocktail reception that started at 5:00 pm I was in the main room where Arianna Huffington had been the keynote speaker in front of more than 4,000 attendees earlier in the day.

My first tip off of what I was up against was when I was giving my slides on a USB memory stick to an A/V guy earlier in the day. After realizing which room I was speaking in, he laughed and said “Oh, you are in the airplane hangar.”

I immediately went to check out the room and discovered it was indeed the size of a huge airplane hangar, set up for roughly 5,000 people. I was anticipating between 250-500 attendees for my session. Yikes I initially thought.

At moments like this you can either panic, get nervous or frustrated – or start figuring out how you are going to prepare and respond to the situation.

During a break between other sessions in the room, I took the liberty to walk on to the stage and get a feel for what it is like moving around on the massive stage and looking out into the cavernous audience.

I then sat in the audience of a few sessions prior to mine that also had a just a few hundred audience members to get a feel for what it was like being in the audience – potentially hundreds of feet away from the speakers. And this conference did not have video screens so that no matter where you were in the room you could see the speaker in near life-size dimensions.

One thing I noticed was that audience members were spread out throughout the entire room, including the back row and farthest corner. But that the majority of people congregated in two areas near the right side of the stage. I decided my plan would be to focus my energies and eye contact on those two areas which made up 80% of the audience.

Because my session was the last of the day and up against the reception, I knew I had to keep my pace fast and energized – which is what I did once on stage. I also had quite a few slides for a 30 minute session, and so kept my usual banter and elaboration to a minimum. That approach would not have worked this time.

The other goal was to leave them wanting more. I was presenting the results of a study and the build up to the end was for people to come by our booth to get the complete study report. The session went well, the audience was extremely engaged despite the time slot, and more than 200 people immediately walked to our trade booth to get a copy of the study report.

The point and lesson, is that every room you speak in has its own unique characteristics – some positive and some negative. But it is your responsibility as an experienced speaker to be prepared and have a plan as to how you deliver the best talk in every room you present.

Not surprisingly, most speakers/presenters spend probably 90+% of their preparation time working on their slides. However, slides are a bit like what a script is to a movie – you still need actors and the set to bring the story to life.

I refer to this totality of your presentation as your “speaker canvas.” Your slides (and audio and video if used) are your paint and multi-media that is applied to your “canvas.”

Think about a film maker and their changing “canvas” today. As a movie watcher your enjoyment of a film can differ widely based on the comfort of the theater, Were there teens texting and talking in the theater?; Did you watch it on a plane on a small poorly lit screen?; On an iPad by the pool?; In 5 sequences over a few weeks on Netflix?; On your big screen at home?; Or after a disappointing restaurant experience or argument with your significant other?

While clearly different from a film viewing experience, presenting also has potentially dozens of variables that can dramatically affect an audiences’ experience with your talk.

These can include:

Time of day/Time slot: Are you the last of 4 speakers before an overdue break? Are you the last speaker of the day and standing between either cocktails or people heading into their commute home? Are you following an amazing keynote speaker who had the audience laughing in hysterics for an hour?

Keynote or Breakout: Audiences bring very different expectations to a keynote session than they do a breakout session competing with 10 other sessions at the same time.

Venue: Are you speaking at a 4- or 5-star resort or dated economy airport hotel? Are attendees relaxed and enjoying the setting for a few days or planning when to leave for their drive home to the suburbs later?

Mood: Is the audience in a great mood or is their industry or company under significant competitive, pricing or technology threats? Do they what to laugh, be consoled or energized?

The room: Is the room tiny and cozy or laid out for an audience of thousands while you are only speaking to hundreds? Is it wide and short, long and narrow, or square? Are you close to the audience in an intimate setting or do you feel like the Pope speaking to the masses?

The stage: Is the stage large enough for a Broadway play or a small riser that if you take 2 steps you will fall off of the stage? Do you have room to prance the stage if that is your style?

Screen, sound and lighting: Did the event organizer go cheap and not supply a lavalier microphone forcing you to hold the presentation clicker in one hand and handheld mic in the other? Or worse yet force you to use the podium mic? Is the presentation screen not aligned or is the color washed out? Is it a small screen is the center of the stage or several large screens on each side of the stage? Is the room dark like a movie theater or do the stage lights blind you and you have trouble seeing the audience?

Session Title and Description: Did your PR person submit a topic description and title 9 months earlier that you can’t stand and you now intend go in a different direction with your session? What content expectations does the title and description create?

Co-Presenter: Are you sharing the stage with a client, partner, competitor or co-worker? Are they inexperienced and deathly nervous, soft spoken, have horrible slides or talk forever?

Physical Health/Well Being: Are you dealing with a cold or cough? Did you take a red eye to the event or stay up all night partying or finishing your slides? If you do much speaking you will likely experience at least 2 of these in short order.

Familiarity with your presentation/ rehearsal: Therewill come times in your “speaking career” when you are asked to fill in for someone who had a family emergency; or you were given someone else’s slides and you simply didn’t have or didn’t make the time to “make them yours.”

Some of the above elements that drive your speaking context and available “canvas” are under your control – but many are not. So while you may not have control over the size of the room and layout, your time slot, who speaks before you – you MUST be aware, prepare and respond to these variables as appropriate.

You need to take ownership of the situation and make the best of it or even turn a potential negative situation into a positive. Each one of the above situations may require a different approach or techniques that differ from your original plan for your session. Don’t be unprepared and surprised.

How many times have you watched a speaker proceeding through their slides and then suddenly, without any notice, they click to their “Thank You/Q&A” slide and announce: “That’s it, that’s all I have. Any questions?”

Whoa Nellie! The speaker slammed on the brakes of their presentation and then what often follows is the speaker or event organizer asking if there are any questions – and frequently there are none, or perhaps one or two.

If you are a well-known personality or author then members of the audience will likely have questions they’ve been dying to ask. But for the rest of us, audience members need some time to start thinking about questions. They need a transition phase and a cue, a signal from the speaker that the Q&A period is almost here.

There are many ways to do this and the right approach will vary based on the topic of your presentation, your speaking style and what you want the audience to leave with.

Sample approaches include:

• Summary/Takeaways: Summarize the key points of your presentation or list the key takeaways. Hammer home what you want them to leave with.

• Action plan/steps: Transition into your close with a list of next steps or a plan they can put into place. Your plan or steps can be a great way to tee up questions.

• “Questions to ask yourself”: An effective ending is to pose a series of questions that the audience should ask themselves. It gets them thinking about their own situation and possible questions to ask the speaker that will help them figure out how to address the speaker’s prompting questions.

• Announcement/Surprise: Another approach is to steal a chapter from Steve Jobs and close with “Before I end, I have one more thing to announce.” Or this could be one final point that surprises the audience much like a plot twist in a movie ending. The surprise or announcement is a way of signaling that you are almost done.

Do you have any favorite ways to close your presentation and transition the audience into the Q&A period? Or have you seen someone that has a masterful approach?

Does your session follow the keynote speaker or are you the set-up for the 20 year-old Swedish YouTube sensation?

Turn your speaking slot that sets up or follows a main attraction-type session into an advantage. Never view this situation as a negative as you will likely benefit from more attendees in your session, a more engaged audience, or both.

The first step is simply being aware of the other presenters speaking around your session. Review the conference agenda and try to find out more about these speakers or meet and get to know them if possible.

Try and attend the conference’s speaker reception (if they have one), usually held the night before the event begins. Not only can you make long-lasting friendships, meet well-known speakers but also find out things that will help your session be more successful.

At an event in Stockholm, I discovered by spending time with the moderator of the track I was speaking in that a 20 year-old YouTube sensation named Clara Henry was following me. Oh great I thought. When I got back to my hotel room I watched a few of her videos (and did find one in English) and got a sense of what she was about.

I did 3 things once armed with some background:

1. I referenced her a few times early in my session as she was sitting in the front row.

2. I added some text on one of my slides that had a screen capture of one of my own YouTube videos saying: “Almost as cute as Clara Henry.” It was a throwaway line, but it got a chuckle from many in the audience.

3. I added a screen capture of one of Clara’s videos and used it as a way to set up a section of my presentation that was making the point that brands needed to use more personality and humor in their marketing.

By incorporating these few simple techniques into my presentation I had fun with the fact that I was being followed by a much more popular speaker, but I also turned it into positive benefit.

What have you done to acknowledge that you were the set up for the main attraction?